Alice Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by Caius'babygirl
Summary: I'd never own Harry Potter, and this is just my adaption of the series. Cedric Diggory doesn't die, and it's Fem. Harry. Professor Umbridge is fairly certain that Potter and Diggory are lying about Lord Vol- Argh! Don't make say that name! Anyway you know who I'm talking about, and I really don't have any problem say Voldermort. I'll do all seven books, and Cedric won't die.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

_Oh, that Alice Potter and Cedric Diggory are the most annoying children I've ever had to teach._ Professor Umbridge thought savagely, as she paced in her bright pink office.

You see, ever since the start of the school year, both Alice and Cedric had been insisting that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was back, and she knew otherwise.

_If there was something legal I could do to prove that they were lying, I'd do it._

However, Umbridge hadn't gotten further than this thought, when a large owl flew in through her open window, and dropped a very heavy package on her head. This caused the startled professor to pass out for a few minutes, before finally coming to her senses.

When she opened the package, she saw seven shiny books, and when she read the title of the top one, she just smiled.

_I'm going to prove once and for all that Alice Potter and Cedric Diggory are liars._

For the book she held in her hands was none other than Alice Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.


	2. Chapter 2- New Arrivals

"Come on, Alice. Wake up, or Umbridge will be furious!" Hermione hissed in her best friend's ear.

"What time is it, Hermione?" Alice asked, rather grumpily, as she slowly roused herself.

"It's quarter to eight, and the quicker you get up, the quicker you can see Cedric." Hermione pointed out, eager to get a sleepy Alice out of bed.

Normally, Alice would've hexed Hermione for waking her up before eight, but this time she flew out of bed, hurriedly threw on some clothes, and then placed a freshening charm on herself.

A faint but nice scent of lavender hung around her, and the two friends hurried into the Great Hall.

Alice heard someone calling her name, and looking around, Alice could see her best friend, Cedric Diggory smiling at her.

"Hello, Cedric." Alice said, smiling at him. Her happy moment was ruined by Professor Umbridge, who pushed them both apart.

"We were just going to hug each other, Professor!" Alice snapped, indignantly.

The horrid professor just frowned, and told the pair to sit down.

"That could have been worse; at least I didn't get a detention." Alice whispered to Cedric, who smiled back.

"Hem, hem." Umbridge said, clearing her throat and waving her hand for quiet.

"I suppose you're all wondering why you're here." Umbridge said, smiling a toad-like smile.

Alice shuddered at the smile, as Umbridge went on. "This morning I received a fine looking called Alice Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."

At this, everyone turned to look at Alice, whose emerald eyes were widening in shock.

The Philosopher's Stone had been found by the Golden Quartet in Alice's first year at Hogwarts.

"Professor Dumbledore and I have recruited some special guests between us." Umbridge said, very sweetly.

The double oak doors of the Great Hall opened, and in strode Percy Weasly and Cornelius Fudge. Behind them, were Remus Lupin, the older Weasly boys, Bill and Charlie, and their parents.

Standing behind Remus was his friend, Tonks, who smiled when she saw Alice and Cedric sitting together, and sat down next to Ron.

To everyone's surprise, Rita Skeeter walked in, and behind was Sirius, in dog form, Alice was pleased to see.

Umbridge raised an eyebrow at Alice. "Miss Potter, would you mind telling me who that dog is?" She inquired suspiciously.

"His name is Snuffles, and he's very well trained." Alice said, as politely as she dared to be around Umbridge.

"Very well then, he may stay." Umbridge said coldly, and said, "Who would like to read the first chapter of this book?"

Ha! Cliff hanger, you guys. The person who tells me first who they would like to read will be the winner.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note

I haven't abandoned my story; it's just taking a while to come up with things for the characters to say.

I will attempt to get the next chapter up soon, but in the meantime you are more than welcome to read my other stories and any ideas are welcome for any of them.

Caius'babygirl

P.S. I have written a boarding school book of my own creation, should I put it up?


	4. Alice Potter- The Girl Who Lived

"Seeing as it's a story about Alice, I think it's only fair that she should start." Cedric said, smiling at her, and Professor Umbridge handed Alice the book.

"Chapter 1, The Girl Who Lived" Alice read, and she knew that it was a chapter about her.

"**Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.**

"Why, I didn't know your aunt and uncle could be polite, Alice." Hermione said, sarcastically.

Alice just smiled at her, before reading on.

**They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.**

"You're aunt and uncle are very strange, Alice." Mr Weasly said who was a little puzzled.

"Well, Mr Weasly, my aunt and uncle don't like anything out of the ordinary." Alice explained, smiling slightly.

**Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.**

"If you don't mind me asking, Potter, what's a drill?" Pansy Parkinson sneered at her.

Alice calmly responded by standing up, and speaking to the hall at large, "If there's an item you don't understand, write it on a piece of parchment, and I'll tell you later."

When she had said that, lots of people (including Mr Weasly), wrote "drills" on a piece of parchment.

**He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time** **craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors.**

"Those descriptions are quite accurate," Alice said with a laugh.

"Spying her neighbours sounds like the sort of thing your aunt would do." Professor Snape sneered, and, once again, Alice's eyes widened.

She certainly hadn't known that Professor Snape had known her aunt or her mother.

Alice continued to read, still surprised at the Potions Master.

**The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

Cedric snorted loudly at that. Dudley wasn't small at all, and he was a horrible bully to his cousin.

**The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. **

"What secret was that, Alice?" George asked her, but Alice simply carried on.

**They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

"James might have been an arsehole, but there was nothing wrong with Lilly." Snape hissed, furiously.

"Professor, you're talking to a book." Alice said, raising her eyebrows at Snape's outburst.

Snape just gave her a cold look, and Alice read on.

**Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursleys sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.**

"There's no such word as unDursleyish." Cho Chang of Ravenclaw muttered, and was surprised to see that nearly everyone agreed with her.

**The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street.**

"Probably nothing, but what do I know?" Alice said glumly, and read on.

**The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small daughter, too, but they had never even seen her.** **This girl was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

"Oh yeah, because hanging out with Alice is such a bad idea." Cedric hissed, and Alice didn't have the heart to tell Cedric that he was talking to a book.

"Actually, I think your aunt and uncle have a point there, Miss Potter." Umbridge said sweetly, and Alice shot her a very filthy look.

"What on earth are you talking about, professor?" Alice snarled, with so much venom on the word professor, that everyone was alarmed.

"I mean that you fed Mr Diggory a lie about He-Who-Hasn't-Returned return. Now he's got the same idea, and he shouldn't hang out with you anymore." Umbridge smiled, and raising her wand, made a barricade between the two.

_You wicked witch,_ Alice thought, scowling at the barricade.

"Shall I continue?" Alice snarled, glaring at Professor Umbridge.

Umbridge nodded, and Alice carried on.

** "****When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.**

"Oh, they were pretty strange." Alice said, smiling in spite of the barricade.

**Mr Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.**

"What a dreadful child." Professor McGonagall muttered, and all the teachers agreed.

**None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.**

"Honestly, are they blind or just plain stupid?" Draco asked Alice, and she whispered "The latter."

Draco laughed, and then, surprisingly, he placed an arm around Alice's shoulder in a comforting way.

** "****At half past eight, Mr Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls."**

"Honestly, who encourages behaviour like that?" Professor Sprout demanded.

"My aunt and uncle do." Alice said, offhandedly.

**"Little tyke," chortled Mr Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.**

"There's nothing little about Dudley." Ron spluttered with laughter, and Alice smiled as well.

**It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map.**

Alice frowned, that sounded like Professor McGonagall, but she wasn't sure.

**For a second, Mr Dursley didn't realize what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light.**

"That's odd; Remus thought to himself, I was certain that the day had been cloudy.

**Mr Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive - no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.**

"Most cats can't read, unless you're Professor McGonagall, Alice said, smiling at the Transfiguration teacher.

**Mr Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind.**

"Muggles won't admit that magic exists, even when it's staring at them in the face." Mr Weasly said with a small, fond smile on his face.

**As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

"Seriously, is that all your uncle thinks about?" Draco asked, and Alice nodded sadly, wishing that there wasn't a barricade between her and Cedric.

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks.**

"There's nothing odd about wearing a cloak." Fudge said, and Alice half-smiled at him.

"Muggles don't wear them, sir." She said, and continued.

**Mr Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. **

"There's nothing stupid about wearing a cloak, and besides; we were celebrating the downfall of Voldemort!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, and everyone gasped.

Alice's mouth was hanging open in shock; Professor Flitwick had never said "Voldemort" out loud before.

Still faintly amazed, Alice continued to read.

**He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdo's standing quite close by. **

"We aren't weird; we're just different from everyone else." Luna, also of Ravenclaw sneered, and everyone agreed.

"My Aunt and Uncle don't like anything different, Luna; they think it's a crime. Alice said, and read on.

**They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak!**

"I think that was me who was wearing that cloak." Fudge said, smiling. "I do adore emerald green."

**The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something... yes, that would be it. **

"Er, we weren't." Fudge said, and Alice smiled before reading on.

**The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.**

"Drills, again?" Draco sneered, and Alice read on.

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning.**

"That would have made a pleasant change, I think." Tonks said with a little smile on her face.

**He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open- mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at night time**.

"That's because the owls like to stay within the magical world, or at least with someone magical." Luna smiled, as she was forced into the barricade.

Alice's face was going a little spotty with red splotches.

**Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road**

"Wait, what?" Alice interrupted herself, surprised.

**to buy himself a bun from the bakery.**

"Now that sounds like my uncle." Alice smiled.

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

"Does your uncle normally eavesdrop, Alice?" Draco asked, and Alice replied, "Only when he's curious."

"**The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard yes, their daughter, Alice"**

Alice's emerald eyes filled with tears; she knew what day it was now.

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

"What, is your uncle scared about talking to a group of wizards?" Luna asked, going somewhat cross-eyed.

"No, he just thinks if anyone found out about our world, my uncle would die of shame." Alice said to her.

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking... no, he was being stupid. **

"Finally, your uncle can admit that he's stupid, Alice." Ginny said, and Umbridge pushed her into the barricade as well.

Grinding her teeth, Alice read on.

**Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a daughter called Alice. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his niece was called Alice. He'd never even seen the girl. It might have been Amy. Or Alexandra.**

"Somehow I just can't quite picture your name being Alexandra, Alice." Hermione said to her, before Umbridge pushed her into the barricade as well.

Alice, though inwardly furious, carried on.

**There was no point in worrying Mrs Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. **

"That's really sad, seeing as the two of them were really quite close." Snape sighed, and regretted what he had said to Lilly in fifth year.

**He didn't blame her - if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in cloaks...**

"Those seriously awesome cloaks!" The Weasly twins said with a grin. Umbridge placed a silencing charm on them both, wondering how far Alice's patience would go before she exploded in rage.

_I wonder how many people she can fit into that barricade of hers. _Alice thought, slightly calmer than before.

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.**

**"Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passers-by stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!"**

"That was Dedalus Diggle, Alice." Mrs Weasly said to her with a little smile.

**And the old man hugged Mr Dursley around the middle and walked off. **

"I bet that cheered him up to no end." Tonks said, very sarcastically.

**Mr Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.**

"He never will approve of imagination." Alice said.

**As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall.**

"It was rather uncomfortable, to tell you the truth." McGonagall said to Alice.

**He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.**

**"Shoo!" said Mr Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behaviour?**

"If you insult an animagus, it is." McGonagall said, smiling a little.

**Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.**

**Mrs Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs Next Door's problems with her daughter**

Alice smiled at that; her friend Kitty lived next door to her.

**and how Dudley had learned a new word** ("**Won't!"). Mr Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:**

**"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"**

**"Well, Ted," said the weatherman,**

"That's my dad, he runs the Muggle news, and he knew exactly why the owls had changed their sleeping pattern." Tonks said, and her violet hair turned turquoise.

**"I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars!**

"That was really special." Mrs Weasly said with a smile.

**Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."**

**Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...**

"Again, there's nothing wrong with the Potters." Tonks said, glowering.

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"**

"She hadn't and she would never hear her sister's voice again." Snape said, a little sadly.

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

"She never pretended that when she was younger, the two of them got on well until Petunia found out that Lilly was a witch." Snape sighed.

**"No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

**"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."**

**"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.**

**"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd."**

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare.**

"Coward." Muttered a few people.

**Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their daughter - she'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't she?"**

"I'm just a little younger than he is." Alice said, and that fact had never bothered her.

**"I suppose so," said Mrs Dursley stiffly.**

**"What's her name again? Amy, isn't it?"**

**"Alice. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

"My name is fine." Alice said, indignantly, before reading on.

**"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."**

**He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.**

"I was actually waiting for someone." McGonagall said, frowning a little.

**Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... if it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, he didn't think he could bear it.**

_I don't know why he's worried, seeing as nobody ever has found out. _Alice thought to herself.

**The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on - he yawned and turned over - it couldn't affect them...**

_He was wrong, thought Alice._

**How very wrong he was.**

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness.**

"Goodness, Professor, how long can you stay awake?" Alice asked.

"If it's important, I can stay awake for a while." Professor McGonagall answered.

**It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

"Goodness, you must have been quite stiff for some time afterwards. Alice said, and McGonagall nodded.

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

"Hooray! It's Dumbledore!" Many people cheered, and Dumbledore smiled.

**Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice.**

"Whoever wrote this book is very good at descriptions." Rita Skeeter said, and Alice jumped. She had completely forgotten about Rita.

"Mind if I write a small piece about this, Alice?" She asked, sweetly.

"Well, you can put a piece in the _Daily Prophet, _but _I _will write the article. That way, nothing important will be left out." Alice said, in a cordial tone.

**This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.**

Many cheers raised the bewitched celling, and Alice smiled.

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome.**

"I actually didn't care much, to be honest." Dumbledore smiled.

**He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."**

"I knew that she would be waiting for me that night." Dumbledore muttered to himself.

**He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer,**

"Does it have another name, Professor?" Percy inquired.

"Yes, Mr Weasly, it's also known as a Deluminator." He said.

**until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. **

"Good thinking, Professor. Miss Potter's aunt is seriously the nosiest person on the planet." Snape sneered, before Umbridge shoved _him _into the barricade.

This only made Alice snigger with laughter, knowing Professor Snape; Umbridge wouldn't get away with it.

**Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

**"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."**

**He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.**

**"How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

"Did you have to actually ask that, Professor?" Alice asked.

**"My dear Professor, I 've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."**

**"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

"It was rather uncomfortable, I must say." She said, feeling the need to say it again.

**"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."**

**Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

**"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid.**

"Oi!" Those who had been raised by Muggles shouted, and McGonagall added, "I meant that wizards were doing their thing, and the Muggles hadn't ignored it."

**They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."**

"But he sure has a great sense of humour." Alice said with a smile.

**"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."**

"Not the greatest eleven years, I have to admit." The teachers said in unison.

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."**

**She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day YouKnow-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"**

**"A what?"**

"A really tasty sweet, although I'd much rather eat minties." Alice grinned, and Professor McGonagall magicked up a bowl of mint sweets.

**"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of"**

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"**

**"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You- Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was** **unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name.**

**"I know you haven't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."**

**"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

**"Only because you're too - well - noble to use them."**

"I shudder to think what would happen if he used them." Alice said, shuddering at the idea of Professor Dumbledore becoming a Death Eater.

**"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."**

Everyone laughed, that was rather funny.

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"**

**It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that** **whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.**

**"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead. "**

Once again, Alice's eyes started to water.

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.**

**"Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..."**

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know..." he said heavily.**

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's daughter, Alice. But - he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little girl. No one** **knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Alice Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone.**

**Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

**"It's - it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little girl? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Alice survive?"**

"A sacrifice from my mother kept me alive." Alice said, smiling.

**"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."**

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had **_twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"_

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"**

**"I've come to bring Alice to her aunt and uncle. They're the only family she has left now."**

"That's not exactly true, you know." Remus Lupin said to Alice, and smiled at the dog, Snuffles.

Alice smiled back, and carried on.

**"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. **

**Alice Potter come and live here!"**

**"It's the best place for her," said Dumbledore firmly. **

Alice sighed; it had never been a great place for her to live in.

**"Her aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to her when she's older.**

"They never did explain anything to me, Hagrid had to do it." Alice said with a sigh.

**I've written them a letter."**

"I don't think that a letter was the best idea." Alice said.

**"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand her! She'll be famous - a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Alice Potter day in the future **

"Is there really?" Alice asked, disgruntled, and everyone shook their heads.

**- there will be books written about Alice - every child in our world will know her name!"**

**"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any girl's head. Famous before she can walk and talk! Famous for something she won't even remember! Can you see how much better off she'll be, growing up away from all that until she's ready to take it?"**

"Girls are more likely to get big-headed." Snape said, coldly, which caused Alice to give him her best impression of his own glare.

"I don't get big-headed, Professor Snape!" Alice snarled at him, and continued to read.

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the girl getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Alice underneath it.**

Alice shuddered at the mental image in her brain before going on.

**"Hagrid's bringing her."**

**"You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"**

**I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.**

"Thank you, sir." Hagrid beamed at his employer, very chuffed.

"You're welcome." Dumbledore said, smiling back.

**"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that?"**

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky - and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

"That was Hagrid, right?" Alice asked, and McGonagall nodded.

**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**

**"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"**

**"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sit," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got her, sir."**

**"No problems, were there?"**

**"No, sir - house was almost destroyed, but I got her out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. She fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."**

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby girl, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over her forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.**

"I can tell you that it's no fun being connected to Voldermort's mind." Alice said drily.

Every single person screamed, and Alice shrugged her shoulders.

**"Is that where -?" whispered Professor McGonagall.**

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "She'll have that scar forever."**

**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. **

"Can I see that scar someday, Professor?" Alice asked, and Dumbledore nodded.

**Well - give her here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with."**

**Dumbledore took Alice in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house.**

"I hope I wasn't too heavy for you, Sir?" Alice asked, and everyone either smiled or laughed.

"No, Miss Potter, although I won't attempt to do the same thing again." Dumbledore said a merry twinkle in his eyes.

**"Could I - could I say good-bye to her, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Alice and gave her what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

Snuffles the dog let out the same sort of howl, and Umbridge glared at him.

"**Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"**

**"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Alice off ter live with Muggles -"**

"An' the wors' yer ever could meet." Hagrid frowned.

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Alice gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Alice's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

"Of course it had, I was sad." Dumbledore said, a little sadly.

**"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

"Those were great fun, but also a time of sadness because of your parents." Professor Sprout said wistfully.

**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir."**

**Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.**

**"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer.**

**He clicked it once and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.**

"It was warm that night, my aunt told me." Alice said.

**"Good luck, Alice," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.**

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen.**

"I suppose finding you on the front step was astonishing enough for your aunt and uncle." Pansy said gently to her.

Alice smiled. Nobody liked Umbridge, so even people like the Slytherins could afford to be nice to Alice.

**Alice Potter rolled over inside her blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside her and she slept on, not knowing she was special, not knowing she was famous, not knowing she would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs Dursleys scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, **

"That wouldn't be a fun way to wake up, I'd say." Tonks said a small frown on her face.

**Nor that she would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by her cousin Dudley... **

"Your cousin is a beast." Hermione hissed through the barrier between her and Alice.

"I know that, seeing as I've lived with him for fourteen years." Alice said.

**She couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Alice Potter - the girl who lived!" **

"Well, that was interesting." Alice said, wondering if anybody had liked her reading.

There was no doubt about it; a few seconds later, cheers raised the bewitched celling, and to Alice's joy, Umbridge's barricade burst, and she hugged Cedric.

"That was chapter 1, who'd like to read chapter two?" Alice asked, smiling around at everyone.


	5. The Vanishing Glass

As Alice and Cedric embraced one another, a bright ball of purple fire fell between the two lovers, emitting a loud bang.

"What on earth is that?" Alice asked, puzzled.

As the smoke cleared away, it revealed, most surprisingly, Alice's parents as they had looked just before their demise.

Alice's mouth dropped open as her parents stood up, brushing soot from their robes.

Lilly, having caught the eye of Severus Snape ran over to him, embracing him in her arms.

"Severus, it's been a long time." She breathed, and Alice was startled to see Professor Snape hug her mother, as if they were old friends.

James, on the other hand, simply smiled at Snape, his hand outstretched.

"Hello, Severus. I didn't know that you worked here." James said in a cordial tone.

Alice smiled at her mother and father, saying, "I didn't know that my mum went to school with you, Professor Snape."

Lilly's emerald green eyes widened, and she smiled a bright happy smile. "Alice, is that you?" She breathed, hardly daring to believe it.

"Yes, it is me." She smiled, and then added, "I didn't want either of you to die for me."

Lilly and James smiled kindly at her, and James said, "I don't think that many witches or wizards have their parents after they died, in the flesh."

Alice smiled, but she was cut off by an annoying cough. Professor Umbridge was standing there, with the book open to Chapter Two. After a quick hurried discussion with Lilly about why they were there, Alice sat down on her own.

Cedric glanced at her and said, "What are you doing?"

Alice whispered back, "Well, I can't disobey the High Inquisitor now, can I?

He nodded. "Good point there." Then the most amazing thing happened; Professor Umbridge actually allowed Alice to sit with her friends.

"Thank you, Professor." Alice said, a little startled, but sat down next to Cedric anyway.

"So, who's going to read next?" She inquired, smiling at everyone. Hermione's arm almost knocked Alice's glasses off as she raised her hand.

"Very well, Miss Granger, you may read." Umbridge said, and handed her the book.

**THE VANISHING GLASS**

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.**

"Well, they probably like it like that." Alice said smiling a little.

**The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls.**

**Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets –**

"Potter was wearing bonnets." Draco sang in his cruel tone. Alice stifled a snigger, and smiling at Draco, said, "You would look cool if you were wearing bonnets, Draco."

There was a roar of laughter from everybody, and Draco hastily added, "I think I'll pass, thanks."

**but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby,**

"Oh! It was your cousin wearing them." Draco smiled.

**and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another child lived in the house, too.**

"What, they don't acknowledge that you live with them?" Tonks exploded in anger.

"Yeah, they couldn't care less about me, and I don't really care." She said, but her tone suggested otherwise.

**Yet Alice Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.**

"That voice of hers is like a foghorn." Lilly said, remembering her childhood days with her sister.

**"Up! Get up! Now!"**

**Alice woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door again.**

**"Up!" she screeched. Alice heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.**

"It was a very good dream, but it doesn't seem to crop up anymore." Alice said, remembering her fairly recent ones, and shuddered.

**Her aunt was back outside the door.**

**"Are you up yet?" she demanded.**

**"Nearly," said Alice.**

**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."**

**Alice groaned.**

**"What did you say?" her aunt snapped through the door.**

She said nothing, she just groaned." Cedric and Hermione said together.

**"Nothing, nothing..."**

**Dudley's birthday - how could she have forgotten? Alice got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on.**

Ron shuddered; his greatest fear was spiders, and Alice smiled at him kindly.

**Alice was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept.**

There was uproar from every single person (including Umbridge) at this.

"Even if Miss Potter is a liar, she at least should have an adequate room to sleep in. Umbridge hissed, and Alice gave her a small smile.

"I agree, Professor." George said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "The saviour of the Wizarding World doesn't deserve to sleep in a cupboard."

**When she was dressed she went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. **

The sounds of quills scribbling on parchment could be heard.

**Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Alice, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody.**

"Well, at least it wasn't you, Alice." Remus said, smiling, and Alice just raised an eyebrow at him.

**Dudley's favorite punching bag was Alice,**

"What?!" Several people, including the teachers and her parents, exploded with rage."

Alice simply shrugged, and said, "Well, he couldn't often catch me, anyway."

**but he couldn't often catch her.**

"See?" She added, looking pleased with herself.

**Alice didn't look it, but she was very fast.**

"And a very good flyer, too, I might add." Professor Snape said a little smile on his face.

Alice was stunned. Had Professor Snape, the nastiest teacher in the school, just paid her a complement?

"Thank you, Professor." She spluttered feeling most astonished.

**Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Alice had always been small and skinny for her age.**

"If you're that skinny all the time, I reckon your aunt and uncle have only been feeding you enough to keep you alive." Madame Pomfrey said, looking outraged.

**She looked even smaller and skinnier than she really was because all she had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than she was.**

"They only fed you enough to keep you alive, and they don't give you proper clothes, either." Madame Pomfrey said in disgust.

**Alice had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. She wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched her on the nose. **

There were roars of outrage at this, and Hermione, putting the book down, held out her hand.

"Pass me your glasses, Alice." She said, and confused, Alice did. Muttering a few well-chosen words, Hermione tapped Alice's glasses, before handing them back to her.

"If your cousin ever tries to hit the glass again, they will fix themselves." Hermione said, and smiling, she carried on reading.

**The only thing Alice liked about her own appearance was a very thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.**

"You liked it?" Cedric asked, looking confused.

"Well, I did, until Lord Voldermort's brain somehow got connected to mine." She said, and Cedric nodded.

**She had had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she had gotten it.**

**"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."**

"What, she can't ask my sister questions?" Lilly demanded, furious.

**Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

"No wonder you don't ask a lot of questions yourself, Alice." Cedric said, a small frown creasing his brow.

"That doesn't mean that you can't ask questions here, Alice." Professor McGonagall said with a smile. "I'd rather you asked questions instead of looking foolish."

**Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Alice was turning over the bacon.**

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

"What a charming morning greeting." Cedric said, glancing over at Alice, and barked, "Comb your hair," in such an Uncle Vernon like way that Alice laughed.

"My Uncle has competition then." She said, her emerald eyes shining.

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Alice needed a haircut. Alice must have had more haircuts than the rest of the girls in her class put**

**together, but it made no difference, her hair simply grew that way - all over the place.**

"Well, a couple of hair charms will soon fix that." Hermione smiled at her. "The longest one lasts for two months, so if you put some on yourself just before the holidays, it'll last until we come back."

"Thanks, Hermione." Alice responded.

**Alice was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel**

"A baby angel?!" Cedric spluttered. "He looks more like a pig in a wig!"

**- Alice often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

The entire hall was in fits of laughter, and Cedric's face went red.

"We think alike, you and me." Alice said, smiling at him.

**Alice put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

"Your cousin isn't happy with thirty six presents? Draco snarled. "My goodness, even if I only got one for my birthday, I'd be happy."

Alice smiled at him, reflecting on the fact that, instead of being downright mean, the Slytherins were teasing.

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."**

**"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Alice, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down her bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

"But Alice, your cousin doesn't attend Hogwarts, so there is no reason as to why you should shovel down your food at breakfast." Katie Bell said, reasonably.

"I know that, Katie." Alice said, smiling a little.

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right''**

"And I'd have thought that thirty seven was enough for anybody." James said, frowning at the beastly behaviour of his nephew.

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty ... thirty..."**

"He can't count?!" Luna snapped, looking icily around at everyone.

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

"Who the hell makes up names for a boy like that?" Cedric snapped, rhetorically.

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.**

**At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Alice and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR.**

There was a lot of scribbling at these words, and Mr Weasley smiled, saying, "I suppose that these are wonderful contraptions that Muggles use for their entertainment." Alice nodded and smiled.

**He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**

"I didn't do anything." Alice defended herself.

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take her." She jerked her head in Alice's direction.**

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Alice's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Alice was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Alice hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made her look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

"They are fairly boring, if you ask me." Alice said.

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Alice as though she'd planned this. **

"How could my sister blame you for _that?_" Lilly demanded, and Alice replied, "Your sister doesn't like magic, and so felt apt to blame me for anything weird."

**Alice knew she ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when she reminded herself it would be a whole year before she had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.**

"I did feel sorry for her, really. I just didn't want to look at those photos, again." Alice said, looking quite embarrassed.

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

"I'd rather stick my head in a toilet bowl than spend the day with _her." _Alice hissed, and Cedric started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Alice demanded.

"It would be funny to see that, you know." Cedric smiled at her, and Alice just shrugged.

**"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl."**

"We dislike each other with a strong passion." Alice said, but remembering third year, she just sniggered.

"What's so funny?" Asked Tonks, raising an eyebrow.

"Just wait until third year, Tonks." She said, smiling.

**The Dursleys often spoke about Alice like this, as though she wasn't there - or rather, as though she was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

Ron shuddered; he was remembering the incident that had taken place in their second year.

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"**

**"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Alice put in hopefully (she'd be able to watch what she wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).**

"That would have been fun, but I did get to go to the zoo, despite the chaos that followed." Alice said, and Snuffles looked as though he would have raised an eyebrow, had he been in his human form.

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

"That was actually quite funny to see." Alice said, and Lilly replied, "I saw that look quite a few times myself."

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**

"Did she honestly think that you would blow up her house?" Everyone in the vicinity snarled, and Alice nodded.

**"I won't blow up the house," said Alice, but they weren't listening.**

**"I suppose we could take her to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave her in the car..."**

**"That car's new, she's not sitting in it alone..."**

"So, they care about their_ car, _not their _niece? _Lilly demanded.

Her glare only depended when Alice nodded.

**Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

"Brat!" everyone yelled.

**"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let her spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

**"I... don't... want... her... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "She always sp- spoils everything!" He shot Alice a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.**

**Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

"He used to hit me." Alice said, angrily, and everyone else snarled in sympathy.

**Half an hour later, Alice, who couldn't believe her luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. Her aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Alice aside.**

**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Alice's, "I'm warning you now, girl - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

"Have they ever done that?" James asked, speaking for the first time, and quite angry.

"No, the longest I've been in there is for twelve weeks."

"Albus, I'd like to chat to them about how they treat their niece." Remus snapped.

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Alice, "honestly..**

**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe her. No one ever did.**

**The problem was, strange things often happened around Alice and it was just no good telling the Dursleys she didn't make them happen.**

"Don't worry, if accidental magic wants to be heard before you learn to control it, it will make itself known." Dumbledore said wisely.

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Alice coming back from the barbers looking as though she hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut her hair so short she was almost bald except for her bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Alice, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where she was already laughed at for her baggy clothes and taped glasses.**

"I looked ridiculous, to tell you the truth." Alice said.

**Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, even though she had tried to explain that she couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

"The Potter hair is known for growing fast, Alice." James said with a smile at her.

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force her into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls) **

"Eww, I wouldn't want to wear a sweater like _that,_ either." Lavender Brown muttered to her friend, Pavati. 

**- The harder she tried to pull it over her head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Alice. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Alice wasn't punished.**

"Well, I should hope not." Lilly growled.

**On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing her as usual when, as much to Alice's surprise as anyone else's, there she was sitting on the chimney.**

"Wow! Even at an early age you had a knack for flying, Miss Potter." Madam Hooch said brightly, and James looked up in interest.

"You fly?" He asked, and Alice nodded cheerfully.

**The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Alice's headmistress telling them Alice had been climbing school buildings. But all she'd tried to do (as she shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of her cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Alice supposed that the wind must have caught her in mid- jump.**

"I actually flew, but I didn't know that at the time." Alice said with a smile.

**But today, nothing was going to go wrong. **

"No, of course nothing would go wrong around me that day." Alice said, her voice dripping with sarcasm on every word.

"You do a sarcastic voice quite well, Alice." Everyone turned to find Rita Skeeter smiling at her. Alice rolled her eyes, and Hermione continued.

**It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, her cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.**

"I was quite pleased about going to the zoo." Alice smiled at Cedric, who grinned back at her.

**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Alice, the council, Alice, the bank, and Alice were just a few of his favorite subjects.**

"That's odd, you know." Fred sneered at her.

"What is?" Alice asked, bemused.

"Well, your name appeared three times in that single sentence." Fred pointed out, and Alice rolled her eyes.

**This morning, it was motorcycles.**

**"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**

**I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Alice, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

"That wasn't the smartest thing to say, Alice." Cedric groaned, worried about what this man would do to his angel.

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Alice, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"**

**Dudley and Piers sniggered.**

"Beasts," Ron muttered in Alice's ear.

**I know they don't," said Alice. "It was only a dream."**

**But she wished she hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than her asking questions, it was her talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think she might get dangerous ideas.**

"Hey, Alice, what's a cartoon?" George asked her, smiling wickedly at her, and Alice mouthed, "I'll tell you over lunch."

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Alice what she wanted before they could hurry her away, they bought her a cheap lemon ice pop.**

"If it was up to me, you'd be getting a chocolate ice cream, and Dudley and Piers wouldn't be anywhere near us." Lilly said with a smile, and Alice added, "The lemon ice pop was really nice, even if it was cheap."

**It wasn't bad, either, Alice thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

Everyone in the Great Hall including Umbridge, (See Author's Note at the bottom of the chapter), burst out laughing.

"You've got some cheek, thinking about your cousin like that." Umbridge snorted through tears of laughter.

**Alice had the best morning she'd had in a long time. She was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting her.**

"They didn't hit me, and I was rather chuffed." Alice smiled.

**They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Alice was allowed to finish the first.**

"They sound most delicious, can we all have one with lunch, Professor?" Lilly asked, her mouth clearly watering at the very thought of such a treat.

Dumbledore smiled, and nodded.

**Alice felt, afterward, that she should have known it was all too good to last.**

**After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons.**

"If I had been there, they would have seen more than that." Professor Snape smirked at Alice, and she smiled.

**Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can - but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.**

"Better for the snake to be asleep than glowering at your annoying relatives." James said with a smile.

**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.**

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

"You aren't supposed to do things that are going to annoy the animals, you know." Hermione's arms were crossed, and she frowned at the book before reading on.

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

"That's a smart snake, ignoring people like that." Tonks said, rolling her eyes, and made her hair go reptilian.

"Cool hair-do, Tonks," Alice smiled, and Tonks grinned back at her.

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

**Alice moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least she got to visit the rest of the house.**

"You compare your life to a snake's?" Percy asked her, incredulously.

Alice nodded, but said nothing to him.

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Alice's.**

**It winked.**

"Well, that isn't something you see every day." Luna said dreamily, and Alice smiled.

**Alice stared. Then she looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. She looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

**The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Alice a look that said quite plainly:**

**"I get that all the time.**

**"I know," Alice murmured through the glass, though she wasn't sure the snake could hear her.**

Everyone who hadn't been to the Duelling Club in Alice's second year gasped.

"She's a Parselmouth, and you think that she's decent?" Umbridge demanded of Dumbledore.

"Yes, Alice can speak to snakes, but that doesn't make her a bad person, Delores."

**"It must be really annoying."**

"Wow! It's kind of cool that you can speak Parseltounge, Alice. Can you show us?" Lilly asked, and Alice looked the little green snake on the Slytherin flag.

"_Hello, I'm Alice, and I'm so pleased that I wasn't put in Slytherin."_ Alice hissed softly, and everyone applauded.

**The snake nodded vigorously.**

**"Where do you come from, anyway?" Alice asked.**

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Alice peered at it.**

**Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**

**"Was it nice there?"**

**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Alice read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"**

"I felt quite sorry for that snake; it was quite cool to speak to it." Alice said, grinning.

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Alice made both of them jump.**

**"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**

**Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

"When Dudley waddles, it's really funny. It looks like a penguin shuffling across the ice." Alice snorted, and Cedric laughed.

**"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Alice in the ribs.**

Madam Pomfrey gasped, and said shakily, "Did you break any?"

Alice shook her head, and said curtly, "No, I did not, but I did bruise a few."

**Caught by surprise, Alice fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

"What did you do?" Mrs Weasley inquired, looking startled.

**Alice sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

"That was very funny, seeing them all running like that." Alice chortled, and gave a small chuckle.

**As the snake slid swiftly past her, Alice could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."**

**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

"Obviously, it vanished into thin air." Ginny muttered, rolling her eyes.

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Alice had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.**

"Oh, what utter rubbish!" Alice snapped, looking annoyed. "It didn't even touch them."

**But worst of all, for Alice at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Alice was talking to it, weren't you, Alice?"**

"Next time I go to Privet Drive, I'm going to strangle Piers for you." Cedric growled, and Alice smiled. She really did have the best boyfriend in the world.

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Alice. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

**Alice lay in her dark cupboard much later, wishing she had a watch. She didn't know what time it was and she couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet.**

Cedric had been waving his wand absently, and now handed Alice the most beautiful watch she had ever seen. It was set with blood-red rubies in the strap, and set into the face of the watch were little diamonds.

"Cedric, this is gorgeous." Alice gasped, and Cedric smiled. "My beautiful girlfriend deserves a beautiful watch." He smiled, and Alice just smiled brightly.

**Until they were, she couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**

**S****he'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as she could remember, ever since she'd been a baby and her parents had died in that car crash. She couldn't remember being in the car when her parents had died.**

"My sister told you that we died in a _car crash?" _Lilly demanded, and Alice nodded, slightly worried, because her mother looked as though she was going to breathe fire.

**Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in her cupboard, she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burn- ing pain on her forehead. **

"Voldemort." Cedric and Alice muttered.

**This, she supposed, was the crash, though she couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. She couldn't remember her parents at all. Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

**When she had been younger, Alice had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were her only family. **

"That isn't true anymore, you know." Dumbledore said with a small smile.

**Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Alice furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken her hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Alice tried to get a closer look.**

"Back then, I hadn't heard of Apparition." Alice pointed out, in answer to the unasked question.

**At school, Alice had no one. **

"Now the whole school is on your side." Cedric grinned at her, and Alice gave him a hug.

**Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Alice Potter in her baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

"We would disagree with them." The school said as one, and Cedric nodded.

"If anyone hurts my baby, they'd regret it."

Lilly and James smiled at each other, and Lilly said to Cedric, "You take good care of my girl."

Cedric smiled at her, and said, "If your daughter was in some danger that I knew about, I'd be there for her."

Alice smiled brightly and gave him a great big hug.

Then Ron said, "I'm starving, could we please have some lunch?"

Everyone rolled their eyes at him, but a magnificent lunch appeared before them, and so did many knickerbocker glories.

A.N.

So, I hope you all enjoyed that. The reason Umbridge is nice is because I didn't like her character in the book, so she's just a little bit nicer. By the end of the Goblet of Fire, she'll be very apologetic.

By the way, how do you think Cedric and Alice should meet?


	6. Chapter 6

Cedric and Alice smiled at one another, and Cedric asked, "How old is Kitty?" Alice smiled and responded, "She's the same age as me." She scooped out her vanilla ice cream with her spoon, and popped it into her mouth.

"I'd like to meet Kitty, Al-" But Cedric never finished his sentence, for at that moment, a big purple cloud started to float around the Hall, clearing to reveal a very slim girl with golden hair and blue eyes.

"Well, Cedric, if you want to meet Kitty, here she is."

Cedric smiled at Kitty, and shook her hand warmly, before Alice gave her a hug.

Umbridge smiled at Kitty, who gave her an odd look.

"So, Alice, is this your school?" Kitty asked, looking quite alarmed.

"Yeah, and it's the best school in the world. Would you like a knickerbocker glory?" Alice asked politely.

Kitty smiled, and helped herself to a chocolate knickerbocker glory.

Alice then told her friend why they were there, and explained that everyone was taking it in turns to read her story.

"That's a little creepy, if you ask me. But can I read the next chapter, please?" Kitty asked, looking excited.

Alice nodded, and said, "Sure you can."

"Very well then, here's Chapter Three- The Letters from No One." Kitty read.

**THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE**

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Alice her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out of her cupboard again, the summer holidays had started**

"How long were you in there?" Cedric asked, and Alice replied, "A month."

**and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

"Now that's really cruel," Tonks growled, her hair going a dark black.

**Alice was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day.**

"Not unless I go to Kitty's house for a while." Alice pointed out quickly, seeing the look of confusion on her friend's face.

**Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Alice Hunting.**

"What!?" Everyone yelled, and Alice quickly added, "They couldn't often catch me; I could easily outrun them all." Cedric's glower faded into a half smile, and he placed an arm around her back.

**This was why Alice spent as much time as possible out of the house, either spending time with Kitty, or wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where she could see a tiny ray of hope. **

"Of course you could see a ray of hope, Alice." Cedric smiled. "You were coming here."

Alice playfully slapped him and whispered, "Well, I didn't know about that yet, did I?"

**When September came she would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Dudley.**

"Goodness, I shudder to think what would have happened if he had come with me." Alice muttered, and Professor Snape overheard.

"If he had, he'd learnt some manners." He smirked, and Alice chuckled.

**Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Alice, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

"That in itself is a worry, what did he think was funny?" Cedric asked, slightly worried.

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Alice. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"**

"You better not have, Alice." Remus growled, and Alice smiled, saying, "Anyone who knows me well will know that I can come up with suitable comebacks."

**"No, thanks," said Alice. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick."**

"See?" She pointed out.

**Then she ran, before Dudley could work out what she'd said.**

"Good for you, Alice." Draco said, grinning at her, which Alice didn't return. She had been looking at Hermione, who was thinking about something, and Alice remembered how nasty Draco had been to her in their second year.

**One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Alice at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn 't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Alice watch television and gave her a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

"Although you aren't really meant to keep chocolate cake for that long, it wasn't too bad." Alice said, with a small smile.

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. **

Alice glanced at all the boys in the school, shuddering to imagine what such a uniform would look like on them.

"Thank goodness that you boys don't have to wear stuff like that." She whispered into Cedric's ear, and he grinned.

**They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

"You would never find a stick on the equipment list." Dumbledore snapped, looking angry.

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up.**

"That is the last time we're calling Ron "Ickle Ronniekins." George muttered, and Ron looked pleased.

**Alice didn't trust herself to speak. She thought two of her ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

"I didn't, but they were very sore for some time afterward." Alice said.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Alice went in for breakfast.**

"Wow, you actually got breakfast?" Inquired Tonks and Alice nodded.

**It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. She went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.**

"That doesn't sound very pleasant." Hermione muttered in Alice's ear.

**"What's this?" she asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if she dared to ask a question.**

"Oh for heaven's sake, the question wasn't that bad." Snape hissed.

**"Your new school uniform," she said.**

**Alice looked in the bowl again.**

**"Oh," she said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."**

Fred, George, Kitty, and Cedric fell about laughing, and Alice looked at them all with an amused smile.

**"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."**

**Alice seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue.**

"Very wise." Cedric praised her happily.

**She sat down at the table and tried not to think about how she was going to look on her first day at Stonewall High - like she was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

"How very descriptive, but I would never make the students wear bits of elephant skin." Dumbledore said.

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Alice's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

"If he were my kid, he wouldn't have that stick." Lily grumbled.

**They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**

"That was the first of many attempts to get my letter to me." Alice said to Cedric, who smiled.

"**Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

"Well, at least he has some sense to make Dudley do something, instead of Alice all the time." Cedric said, and Alice chuckled.

**"Make Alice get it."**

"**Get the mail, Alice."**

"Oi! I thought you were making Dudley do it." Ginny snapped, and Alice smiled at her.

**"Make Dudley get it."**

"Good for you, Alice." Ginny said, her outraged look softening a little.

**"Poke her with your Smelting stick, Dudley."**

Alice said very quickly, "Don't worry, I dodged it."

**Alice dodged the Smelting stick **

"See?" She said, and everyone nodded.

**and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and - a letter for Alice.**

"I was really surprised, as no one had ever written to me before."

**Alice picked it up and stared at it, her heart twanging like a giant elastic band.**

"That must have felt strange, Alice." Fred whispered, and she grinned at him.

**No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. Who would? **

"I imagine the whole Wizarding World. Even I wanted to write to Miss Potter, before she started the nonsense about You-Know-Who. That's the only reason why I don't like her." Umbridge said, and a ringing silence fell in the Great Hall.

Alice stared at her, her mouth had dropped open, and she couldn't remember how to close it.

"Are you serious, Professor?" She asked, still very startled, and Umbridge nodded.

**She had no friends, no other relatives - she didn't belong to the library, so she'd never even got rude notes asking for books back.**

"What, you never went to the library?" Hermione asked, incredulous.

"I did, but I read everything there." Alice explained.

**Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

**Miss. A. Potter**

**The Cupboard under the Stairs**

**4 Privet Drive**

**Little Whinging**

**Surrey**

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

"We have never used those, because our owls are so clever." Professor Sprout said.

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Alice saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, **

"Gryffindor!" They shouted

**an eagle,**

Cho Chang, who was sitting next to Alice, cheered with the rest of her house: Ravenclaw.

**a badger,**

Cedric grinned at Hannah and Ernie, who were fellow "Hufflepuffs." They also cheered with their house.

**and a snake**

Professor Snape smiled at his cheering students.

**surrounding a large letter H.**

Everybody in the Great Hall, save Kitty, cheered and cried, "Hogwarts!"

**"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen.**

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, she has a name!" Kitty snapped at the book, before going on.

**"What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

"Well, that joke wasn't very funny, and who laughs at such a poor joke like that anyway?" Lilly inquired.

**Alice**** went back to the kitchen, still staring at her letter. She handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

"It might have been wiser to open it somewhere else, but I suppose I found out at the right time." Alice said.

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk. -."**

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Alice's got something!"**

"Oh, your cousin is such a little beast, Alice." Cedric snarled, and Alice nodded in agreement.

**Alice was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of her hand by Uncle Vernon.**

"Well, I did get the letter in the end." Alice said happily, and smiled at Cedric, who grinned back cheerfully.

**"That's mine!" said Alice, trying to snatch it back.**

**"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon,**

"The whole Wizarding world!" Everyone cheered, nearly raising the bewitched roof.

**shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.**

"Well, that explains why you never eat porridge." Cedric said thoughtfully, before adding, "If _my _uncle's looked like that, I wouldn't either."

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**

"His face was more ruddy than usual." Alice said, in such a Luna-like way, that Luna chuckled.

"Good imitation, Alice." She said, dreamily.

**Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. **

"He wouldn't have understood it, anyway. I placed a spell on it that translated the letter into Chinese for anyone who wasn't magical or who wasn't your guardian." Professor Flitwick squeaked, and Alice chuckled.

**Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

"I thought she was going to pass out cold on the floor." Alice snorted.

**"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"**

**They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Alice and Dudley were still in the room. **

"An easy thing to do when you're occupied." Remus said.

**Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.**

"Not a smart idea, but then again, your cousin isn't the smartest person in the world." Fred smirked.

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

"**I want to read it," said Alice furiously, "as it's mine."**

"Good for you, Alice." Cedric said, smiling a little.

**"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

"I'm betting that you didn't you go anywhere, Alice." Cedric asked, and Alice simply raised an eyebrow at him.

**Alice didn't move.**

"I suspected as much." Cedric and Fred said quietly.

**I WANT MY LETTER!" She shouted.**

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Alice and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. **

"I bet that hurt." A few people muttered.

**Alice and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Alice, her glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on her stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.**

"That's a very good place to eavesdrop, by the way." Alice said, and the Weasley twins chuckled.

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"**

"Yes, we are watching your house." Dumbledore said, looking pleased.

**"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

"No, we weren't following you." Dumbledore said.

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -"**

"As if we'd really listen." Professor Snape said with a satisfied smirk on his face.

**Alice could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

"The floor was getting a little thin." Alice said, and Professors Snape and McGonagall started to laugh.

"We put a spell on the floor," Professor McGonagall said, her eyes lighting up.

**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything...**

"Sensible idea." Snape smirked.

**"But -"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"**

"I'm glad that didn't work." Professor McGonagall said.

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Alice in her cupboard.**

"Now aliens are really taking over the world." Fred squeaked, and the Hall was in fits of laughter again.

**"Where's my letter?" said Alice, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door.**

"Being quite large, it amazed me that he could fit." Alice said.

**"Who's writing to me?"**

**"No one. it was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**

"Don't be ridiculous." Professor Lupin snapped at the book, and Alice sniggered.

"Oh yes, that was _Ridikulus." _Alice said, and Remus chuckled at her joke

**"It was not a mistake," said Alice angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."**

"That was quite amazing, actually." Alice said, looking thoughtful.

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

"He looked like he was grimacing, actually." Alice said.

**"Er - yes, Alice - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.**

"I must admit, I was surprised and slightly suspicious." Alice said.

**"Why?" said Alice.**

"Don't ask questions!" Cedric ordered in a very good imitation of Uncle Vernon, and Alice laughed.

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped her uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."**

**The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom.**

"So, your cousin has two bedrooms, and you don't even have an adequate one." Madam Pomfrey exclaimed in disgust.

**It only took Alice one trip upstairs to move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room. She sat down on the bed and stared around her. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. **

**Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**

The Ravenclaws looked aghast, and Alice said, "There are some pretty good ones, like Matilda by Roald Dahl.

"Oh, I like that book." Hermione said, grinning.

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, I don't want her in there... I need that room... make her get out..."**

"You've got one room, surely you can share." Ginny said coldly.

**Alice sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here.**

"Well, it sure beats a cupboard any day." Alice said.

**Today she'd rather be back in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

"Well, for a room, it's not that bad." Fred and George said, winking at Alice.

**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof,**

"Poor thing died, it suffered from a haemorrhage." Kitty said.

**and he still didn't have his room back. Alice was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Alice,**

"Your uncle was being nice to you?" Fred said, and then screamed, "Aliens have taken over the world," in such a dramatic tone that everyone burst into fits of laughter.

**made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Miss. A. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -'"**

**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Alice right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Alice had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.**

Everyone in the Great Hall sniggered appreciatively.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Alice's letter clutched in his hand.**

"He didn't give it to me, then, either." Alice said, smiling because she knew that she eventually did.

**"Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Alice. "Dudley - go - just go."**

**Alice walked round and round her new room. Someone knew she had moved out of her cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter.**

"Of course we knew." Dumbledore said with a little smile. 

**Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she'd make sure they didn't fail. She had a plan.**

"It didn't go very well." Alice said.

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Alice turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Dursleys.**

"Good thinking, Alice." Cedric said.

**She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

**S****he was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first.**

"That was easier said than done." Alice said to Cedric, who was instantly worried.

**Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door -**

"**AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!" **

**Alice leapt into the air; she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive!**

"Oh dear, what was it? I hope it wasn't an animal." Mrs. Weasley muttered.

**Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Alice realized that the big, squashy something had been her uncle's face.**

The Gryffindor's burst into applause and gales of laughter, followed by everyone else.

**Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Alice didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. **

"Bother, that plan was going quite well, until your uncle woke up." Ginny said with a sigh.

**He shouted at Alice for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea. Alice shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. **

"That wasn't good." Tonks muttered.

**Alice could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

**I want -" she began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes.**

Growling filled the hall, and Alice said, "Don't worry; I got my letter in the end."

**Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**

**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**

"Never will we give up." Katie said.

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**

"It never worked, we wizards never give up." Dumbledore said with a little smile.

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

Several people laughed, and Hannah Abbott of Huffelpuff wrote "Is he really that stupid?" on a piece of parchment, before making it fly towards Alice, who read it with a snort.

**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Alice. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

Alice, visualising a letter dropping in Uncle Vernon's lap whilst sitting on the loo, gave a quiet snort of laughter.

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters,**

"Burning didn't work, I got my letter in the end." Alice said, grinning.

**he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

"That's not a bad song, and I reckon your uncle was getting paranoid." Hermione said to Alice, who muttered, "Gee, you think?" 

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Alice found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. **

"Possibly one of the funniest things I've ever done." Professor Snape said a wicked, but also amused, smile on his face. Alice stared at him in surprise.

"Wow, a man who I have feared and respected for five years actually has a sense of humour?" Alice said.

Snape smiled and nodded.

**While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Alice in amazement.**

"Hogwarts!" The teachers cried in unison.

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, **

"Oh, that's good." Kitty said happily.

**but happy.**

"But that isn't." She added with a frown.

**"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today -"**

"Wizards and Witches get _their_ post on Sunday." Professor Sprout said.

**Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head.**

"Hooray!" Cedric, Fred, and George cried.

**Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Alice leapt into the air trying to catch one.**

"Why didn't you get one from the floor?" Tonks asked, and Alice said, "It was fun."

**"Out! OUT!"**

**Uncle Vernon seized Alice around the waist and threw her into the hall.**

"That was very painful; I succeeded in breaking my nose." Alice said, and Cedric glanced at her nose which had a long scar across the bridge.

**When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

"It was really funny, now that I come to think about it." Alice said.

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**

"Nobody was that stupid." Alice rolled her green eyes, which made Cedric laugh.

**He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue.**

"In fact, it would have been funny, if the situation wasn't so serious." Alice said.

**Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

"Not the best way to discipline a child." Mrs Weasley said, frowning.

**They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

"He's going to end up in an asylum if he's not careful." Remus said, and James laughed loudly.

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

"Well, now he knows what it's like to be Alice." Katie muttered.

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Alice shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets.**

"That's not at all hygienic; all my patients have dry, warm sheets." Madame Pomfrey insisted.

**Dudley snored but Alice stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...**

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. **

"Ew, that isn't a very good breakfast." Ginny said to Alice, who replied, "Well, it wasn't a very good hotel."

**They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

"How special, you don't normally get to see the manager." George said.

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Miss. A. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**

"Well, we had to get your letter to you somehow." Professor McGonagall said.

**She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

**Miss. A. Potter**

**Room 17**

**Railview Hotel**

**Cokeworth**

**Alice made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked her hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

"Well she did think it was strange." Alice rolled her eyes.

**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**

**Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew.**

"I imagine a place where we weren't going to be bothered."

**He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

"They were very bizarre places to stop, I must admit." Alice muttered.

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.**

"No, he had lost his mind some years before that." Professor Snape said sarcastically. Lilly snorted, and one of James' eyebrows was raised.

Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.**

"Aw, did Ickle Duddleykins not get his own way?" Fred simpered, and Alice burst into fits of silent laughter.

**"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television. "**

"It's a very stupid programm, so he wasn't missing anything." Alice said, rolling her eyes, and Fred and George laughed.

**Monday. This reminded Alice of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Alice's eleventh birthday. Of course, her birthdays were never exactly fun –**

"Don't worry, Alice. Next year your birthday will be positively wonderful." Remus said to her, and Alice grinned.

**last year, the Dursleys had given her a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

"True, I remember mine." Lilly said, and smiled at Snape, who grinned back.

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**

"It was an air rifle." Alice explained.

**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"**

**It was very cold outside the car.**

"It must have at least 5 degrees." Alice shivered and Cedric placed his black cloak around her.

**Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine.**

"Oh, it was disgusting." Alice said with a shudder.

**One thing was certain, there was no television in there.**

"And Dudley didn't complain." Alice added, which amazed the people who heard.

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"**

"Ew, that man was very creepy." Alice shuddered.

**A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.**

"Actually, it was kind of like silver, but nowhere near as attractive." Alice said to Cedric, who smiled back.

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"**

**It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours**

"It was about an hour and a half." Alice said, with a slight shiver.

**they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

"It's in Norwich, I think if anybody wants to see it." Alice said, and Cedric shook his head.

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, **

"That is never a pleasant smell, unless you're from China, and are used to it." Cedric said, smiling at Cho Chang, who smiled back.

**the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. **

"That's not much of a meal, but it was better than nothing." Alice said.

**He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled up.**

"You'd need paper and wood to start a fire properly." Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.**

"I could." Alice said with a little smile.

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. **

"Yeah, but he didn't count on the fact that someone could deliver mail to me that night."

**Alice privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.**

"Well, he would've burnt them all, but a fire would've been nice." Alice said. 

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa.**

"Oh, sure, make a bed for your son, but not pay any attention to your niece?" Lilly demanded.

"Gross, they were mouldy?" Ginny asked, looking a bit green at the thought.

**She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, **

"Well, know they know how I feel when I sleep." Alice muttered.

**and Alice was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

Now that's really unfair, but when have the Dursleys ever been fair to me?" Alice said to Cedric, and he gave her a hug.

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Alice couldn't sleep. **

"It's not an easy thing trying to sleep with a storm blowing fiercely around you." Alice muttered, and Lilly and James wrapped their arms around their daughter.

**She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight**.

"Nor is it easy to sleep with a snoring cousin, or a rumbling tummy." 

Remus then magicked Alice up a massive bar of chocolate, and handed it to her.

"Thanks." She said, and snapped a piece off, before putting it in her mouth. "I love caramel." She sighed happily.

**The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Alice she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time.**

**She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**

"I was at Hogwarts, awaiting your answer and getting more and more worried when you didn't reply." Professor McGonagall said.

**Five minutes to go.**

"I like watching my birthday tick nearer every minute."

Hermione said with a thoughtful smile on her face.

**Alice heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did.**

"I doubt that, dear." Mrs Weasley said, her eyes narrowing at the thought of it.

**Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.**

"I didn't need to steal one, as somebody gave me one." Alice grinned at Cedric, who smiled back.

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

"No, it was the much welcome arrival of somebody." Alice said with a grin.

**One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten... nine - maybe she'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him**

"Oh, yes. Please do, it would be very funny if you did." Fred and George chorused.

**- three... two... one...**

**BOOM.**

Everybody in the hall jumped as Kitty shouted the word. Kitty looked up, and said, "Sorry about that."

**The whole shack shivered and Alice sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in. **

"It was Hagrid, and he should read the next chapter." Alice said grinning brightly at her big friend. "But before we do that, I'd like Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore to help me with something."

Both of the professors Alice mentioned looked at her in confusion, and Alice simply reached down and patted the dog's head.


End file.
